Sunday, May 25, 2008

Former White House political advisor Karl Rove was holding forth on George Stephanopoulos’ This Week news program this Sunday morning. It was pretty sickening. This is the guy who got a mediocre at best son-of-a-president elected (well, the Supreme Court cast the final votes on that one) and re-elected (again, did Ohio really go for Bush in ’04?). We spent years listening to this guy twist the truth in more ways than Fox News can even ever imagine.

Now that he has been chased out of Washington in the aftermath of his treasonous act in the Valerie Plame affair, an act that he successfully shifted the responsibility for, to the shoulders of his aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Rove has been very low key. Yes, he has held forth on some campaigns and is said to be advising the McCain Campaign, but he has been in the background from what I could see.

But now, George Stephanopoulos let him come on his news program to spew his garbage once more. Even now, as members of congress are poised to find him in contempt of congress for ignoring their subpoena.

Rove is claiming Executive Privilege. But it has been pointed out that the action in question never came to the attention of George Bush. Rove, by his own admission never brought up the role that he played in getting charges filed against former (Democratic) Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. How then, can he claim Executive Privilege? It doesn’t work that way. Aides and advisors don’t get to enjoy that privilege. That is reserved for the Executive.

Maybe this is why Stephanopoulos invited Rove to his program, so that he can ask him about the subpoena. The last question handed to Rove was on just this affair:

“Here’s what the House report said, it said ‘In May 2007 a Republican attorney from northern Alabama named Jill Simpson wrote an affidavit stating that in November 2002 she heard a prominent Alabama Republican operative named Bill Canary say that Karl Rove had contacted the Justice Department about bringing a prosecution of Don Siegelman. The question for Mr. Rove is whether he directly or indirectly discussed the possibility of prosecuting Don Siegelman with either the Justice Department or Alabama Republicans.’ Did you?”

Stephanopoulos’s question was “Did you do this?” But true to form, Karl Rove didn’t hear that question. The question he heard was “When did you first hear of the Don Siegelman case?”

So instead of answering the question that was asked, he answered the question he heard.

At much length.

ROVE: “Lemme say three things. First of all . . .uh . . .I think it’s interesting that everybody that was supposedly on that telephone call that Ms. Simpson talks about says that the call never took place. I’d say that . . .”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Although she produced the cell phone record, according to the committee.”

ROVE: “Well, I would say three things. First of all, I . . . uh. . . fsh . . .I . . . uh . . I learned about Don Siegelman’s prosecution by reading about it in the newspaper. Second of all, this is really about a constitutional question of separation of powers. Congress, the House Judiciary Committee wants to be able to call presidential aides on its whim . . uh . . to testify violating the separation of powers. Executive Privilege has been asserted by the White House in a similar instance in the Senate, it will probably be asserted very quickly in this . . . in the House. Third, the White House . . . and . . . has agreed . . . I’m not asser . . .I’m not asserting any personal privilege. The White House has offered . . . and my lawyers offered . . . several different ways in which if the House wants to find out information about this they can find out information about this. And they refused to avail themselves of those opportunities. We didn’t say . . . .close off any option to do what anything else you want to do in the future. We said if you want to hear about this let’s sit down and talk about this and then if you . . .you know . . . you’re entitled to do what you want to do in the future. This is now tied up in court, it’s goin’ to be tied up in court and settled in court. And frankly, the House last week doing this . . . you know . . . uh . . .you know. . . is duplicating what the Senate has already done and it’s already found its way into the court.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “But to be very clear, you did not contact the Justice Department about this case?”

ROVE: “Uh. . . I read about . . . I’m gonna simply say what I’ve said before which is I found out about Don Siegelman’s investigation and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “But that’s not a denial . . . ”

ROVE: “Uh . . .I . . I. . . uh …I…I’ve . . . you know . . .heh . . . I read about . . .I heard about it, I read about it, I learned about it for the first time by reading about it in the newspaper.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Rove, thanks very much."

So did George Stephanopoulos get what he wanted? This is, after all, Karl Rove we are talking about. Of course he would dance around and start talking at the speed of light about everything but not answering the question. That’s what Rove does best. So if that was the reason for bringing this traitor up in front of the cameras again to spew his vile filth, I have to wonder if they got what they wanted.

All I saw was a stammering 17 year old explaining why he hadn’t turned in his lab report.